Reflection Blog Post

Well it’s finally here! The end of this summer session has come. My favorite project from this summer session was probably working on the interview in adobe audition. I am a singer and so I could definitely see myself using that in the future to edit music, mix music and make new music. I really enjoyed going through the process of making an interview, and editing it as well. Editing was always something I thought was incredibly difficult but I actually found it to be simpler than I thought, through working with this program.

I definitely learned many new skills from this class. I have now gained knowledge about how to use several adobe platforms which is a very big accomplishment for me as I am horrible with technology. Prior to this class I didn’t even know much of anything about any of the adobe programs aside from photoshop. I think learning how to edit and revise my projects through each different program was very beneficial to me because editing is something you will use on many occasions in your life, especially in academia as you can always improve assignments.

I am a Communication and Society major, hoping to go into risk and crisis communication. I want to work with people and help them in a unique way, but it is definitely important for me to get more familiar with computers as I am still undecided what exactly I am wanting to do with my degree. These skills help me to keep my options more open and even if I don’t end up using these programs again, I may end up using some that are similar in the future, this is good preparation.

I came into this class with no expectations really and so I can’t think of something I wish I could have learned because I learned more than what I had expected.

I didn’t really use any other websites or resources aside from class resources. I probably should have because I often struggled with the tutorials and if I would have found further instruction elsewhere, it would have benefitted me greatly.

I thought this class was fantastic. I am very impressed with the fluidity of the way it is structured, how well organized everything was. This class was definitely one of the most difficult classes I have taken, as it has been a busy summer for me, and the tasks were nothing like anything I’ve had to do in previous classes. This class really stretched me and I am proud of the work I was able to produce. I wish I would have been able to take this class during a less busy time, as I definitely struggled with turning in my assignments on time. I was very thankful for the gracious late work policy, including the late work pass. A thought I had, was that just for summer session because people have such crazy schedules, 3 late work passes would have been nice, but again the policy was more than generous!

It’s been a great summer session, I am proud of my blog and am hoping to continue blogging about fitness, possibly even using some of those adobe programs. Thank you for a great class!

Fitness Abroad- Final Project

Here is my final project! I am very pleased with how it turned out. The biggest thing I tried to do was simplify it. I realized after reading the professor’s comments as well as re-watching the video several times, that it was too much like a video slideshow with unrelated audio content. It was very important to me that my video content related as directly as possible to what I was saying. I played with the scale on some of the images to make them more visually appealing or in order to make them panoramic. I removed the shaky video I had taken and replaced it with something that looked more clean cut. Overall I think it turned out looking much more polished and complete. I added a caption onto the still photo of Reykjavik, Iceland to help distinguish my photos of London from my photos in Iceland. I had to step back while editing and think about how the viewer would see the video and whether or not it made sense. I think fixing some of these small errors made the video much easier to understand, and enjoy. I chose to not re-record the audio I had taken, but I did cut out one redundant part, which helped cut down my time. Aside from several other finishing touches, those were my main edits!

I talk about this in my outro but I’m hoping that this video conveyed the heart of my blog, that people can relate to what I’m saying. It is easy to live it up on vacation and lose your progress if you are trying to lose weight, or let your personal care slide, but it is so important to start with the little things and realize they go a long way. A simple decision like me choosing water over soda is something that later on helped my body to remain hydrated through the day. On my vacation I enjoyed every bakery I went to, I never did any crazy exercise besides walking to go see the sights, I tried new food, I got to relax, etc. I did not have to sacrifice anything that wasn’t worth it. The goal of this video is that my personal experience may encourage others to apply fitness to their lives, no matter where they are or how they choose to do that.

Video Story- Draft

Here is the draft of my video story! My video story is about my trip to Europe and how I kept up a healthy lifestyle even on vacation! It is often hard when you are on vacation to focus on health and fitness when you want to relax and try new kinds of food. In keeping consistent with my theme, I wanted to show how easy it was to make small changes in your daily routine, like taking the subway or walking, and choosing water over soda. It was important to me that I made a video that shows wherever I go, I can adapt to the environment around me and still make beneficial changes because taking care of yourself is not just something to do when you’re in the comfort of your own home. I found that when I made one healthy choice, it made it easier for me to indulge in something (in moderation) later on. In my video I included several visuals from the City in London or the Scenery in Iceland to make the video more interesting and visually appealing, rather than just talking about food. To make each place different, in London since I talked about staying active and walking, I chose to show more of the sights, but in Iceland I showed more of the food since that has been my focus here.

In the beginning and the end of the video I chose to have longer shots so that it wasn’t visually distracting. For the first frame, next time I may add some music to the shot or something to make it more appealing for an intro. In terms of editing, I want to play with the scales and positioning of photos more so that I have less still shots. I have one video that is shaky and so I would love to replace that with a panoramic shot that I took when I was on the London eye. For this first draft I first had to work to scale all of my photos correctly so they would fit in the frame properly, and I had yet to apply many more effects than that. For my final draft I also may change the fonts of the beginning and ending credits or potentially add music. I do need to cut this down slightly and so I may go back and fine tune the recordings so that they sound more polished!

Raw Footage and Storyboard

com210-storyboard-template

Here is Copy of my storyboard for my Premiere Project. I have been in the UK and Iceland and so I am going to be tying my trip into how I’ve remained conscious of fitness while I’m away.

Here is a video of me walking to a waterfall, I will use it when talking about Iceland in my draft project.

Here is a video of me in an Icelandic Grocery store looking at the different drink options they have, I will use it when talking about food in my draft project.

 

Premiere Tutorials

Here are my completed premiere tutorials! I had a hard time completing these as I am currently abroad in the UK, and I had a hard time learning how to the tutorial correctly. I have finally completed them although they are late.

Final Draft- Audio Project

Here is the final draft of my interview! I am very pleased with the final product. My original draft was over 3 minutes long and so I cut the interview down by over a minute. I made the decision to cut out a lot of my original commentary because I wanted to bring the focus more on to the speaker, rather than on myself and my thoughts about fitness. I loved hearing my fitness mentor’s simple insights on how she thinks about food and exercise. I specifically chose not to ask her about diets or ways that she has lost weight, because I want this blog to focus on realistic ways that you can take care of your body in order to feel better, rather than just look better. The truth is that it is so much important to take care of yourself for health reasons, rather than aesthetics and the aesthetics come later. This woman has been a mentor of mine for a long time, and she has always stressed to me that we have one body for many years, and while you may want to look good in a bikini now, you also have the power to give yourself a higher quality of life by being kind to your body. Part of the reason I interviewed someone over 20 years older than me is because she has much more life experience with fitness, and I found it really interesting that issues she dealt with concerning food, were issues that I still had while I was growing up, yet she had a much more mature perspective.

With this session I had to do a lot of trimming and cutting out of different parts, and then re-adjusting the tracks to make sure they all flowed together nicely. Originally I had some issues with the volume consistency because I re-recorded things at different times if there were errors with the original, and so I modified that as well. I was going to add music in order to spruce it up, but since I was already at the end of my time limit I didn’t want to cut out any more important parts of it in order to add music, and I thought it would be a little bit much to have background music as some people are easily distracted by that.

My interview was very simple, more like a clip, and I would love to do a longer interview another time, but this was a way for me to figure out how to do that in a professional way. I fit two questions in about two minutes, and this experience taught me that as an interviewer it is important to let your subject be the one with the most commentary, in order to not take away from their answers. I am very appreciative to my mentor for her thoughtful insight and willingness to participate!

Audio Story Assignment- DRAFT

Here is an interview I did with a fitness mentor of mine. I wanted to get a realistic perspective on fitness from a mentor with some more life experience than me. In the interview below I do not mention the mentor’s name for their privacy and I made sure that their answers did not include any personal information I was unable to share. My subject gave me very long answers and so part of the editing process was finding what clips and segments of her responses fit the best with the topic and time frame, whilst still accurately conveying what she was trying to say.

My video ran a little long however, and so I am still searching for ways to shorten it and make it more concise. This is a very difficult thing to do when you have so much ground that you want to cover in an interview. For my final draft I need to work with flow, volume and potentially adding music. I already have all of my raw audio, but just making sure everything is clean and polished in my next draft. Something I learned from doing this interview is that when someone is passionate about their topic they have an abundance to say about it, which is fantastic but it can make the editing process more challenging. It is important in the future that I make the questions more specific as well.

Overall, for a first interview I thought that it went great. I was pleased with the insight I gained and I didn’t find the tips to be stereotypical. After using this program and gaining more comfort with it, I think it would be helpful for me to add more audio files of me speaking about fitness in leu of a post from time to time.

The interview is embeded below.

Raw Audio Collection

This first Audio Clip is me giving an intro to the interview I will be giving to my fitness mentor for my post.

 

This second Audio Clip is my interview subject answering a question, it is un-edited and un-cut.

Audition Tutorials

Tutorial #1- Numbers out of Order

Tutorial #1- Completed

Tutorial #2

Tutorial #3

 

Logo Final Draft

Here is my completed logo! For the final product, my biggest goal was to make it bold and more aesthetically pleasing. I wanted it to look polished and professional, and accurately represent my “brand” per say. I started by making the heart beat lines bolder by increasing the stroke to 7pt rather than 1pt. I decided to consolidate the heart beat lines and make them look more like they reflect each other. I wanted the hearts to look more aesthetically pleasing and be a focus point. I decided to spell out the words, rather than just having the L’s, but I kept the same color scheme. I decided to take away the stroke on the hearts so that they stood out more as well. I like how simplistic the design is. This design is simple, yet because of the word choice, font, and color, it conveys a more complex meaning.

I could see this logo in a variety of places, especially on some athletic merchandise. If I wanted to make the logo on a smaller scale, I would probably go back to having just the L’s as a possible modification, or if I was putting it on a letter head I would maybe remove the words completely and stick to the outline of the hearts and the heart beat line. I think this logo would look great on white and grey merchandise especially.

To me, this logo means that fitness is a lifestyle, once you live it you learn to love it. That is part of why I put the “living” in front of “loving.” I chose the hearts because to me hearts represent life, as well as they are a cultural symbol for love and so it fit together perfectly. The “Fitness” sits right on top of the heart beat representing it being a part of your life.